Financial Times – What your commute will look like in 2050, 17 June 2019

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PA IN THE MEDIA

What your commute will look like in 2050

By:

Maija Palmer

| Financial Times

17 June 2019

Warwick Goodall, a transport expert at PA Consulting, is quoted in the Financial Times’ special report, How we will live in 2050.

The article starts by talking about traffic and travel speeds in cities across the world, referencing the “Oxford Street problem”, London’s 1.2 mile long shopping street which is notoriously congested and something every urban planner wants to avoid.

“If you could completely redesign Oxford Street, what would you do?” Warwick says. “You’d route all the traffic above or below, pedestrianising [the city] at street level.”

The piece then looks at new technologies, scooters, bikes, self-driving cars and the future of public transport.

Warwick continues: “Public transport could become highly personalised. For the last century, transport has been about building train sets. The next decades of transport will be built around personal needs. That is why Uber and other ride-hailing services have grown so quickly – you can hail a cab and it will arrive in two minutes. We will go from transport on fixed rails and routes to one that is hyper-personalised.”

Warwick goes on to say: “Even the hyperloop is less expensive than, say, a traditional high-speed rail link. Railways have tracks, signalling, overhead wires. They are difficult to build and maintain. With the hyperloop, as long as the tube is airtight there are fewer moving parts.”